"But why--why?" Raleigh demanded."I have the commission of the King of France.What hindered me to use my remnant like hounds to cut off the stragglers of the Plate Fleet? That way lies much gold, and gold will buy pardon for all offences.What hindered me, I say?""Yourself, Sir Walter."
Raleigh let his head fall back on the couch and smiled bitterly.
"You say truly--myself.'Tis not a question of morals, mark ye.A better man than I might turn pirate with a clear conscience.But for Walter Raleigh it would be black sin.He has walked too brazenly in all weathers to seek common ports in a storm....It becomes not the fortune in which he once lived to go journeys of picory....And there is another reason.
I have suddenly grown desperate old.I think I can still endure, but Icannot institute.My action is by and over and my passion has come.""You are a sick man," said the captain with pity in his voice.
"Sick! Why, yes.But the disease goes very deep.The virtue has gone out of me, old comrade.I no longer hate or love, and once I loved and hated extremely.I am become like a frail woman for tolerance.Spain has worsted me, but I bear her no ill will, though she has slain my son.Yet once Iheld all Spaniards the devil's spawn."
"You spoke kindly of them in your History," said the other, "when you praised their patient virtue.""Did I? I have forgot.Nay, I remember.When I wrote that sentence I was thinking of Berreo.I loved him, though I took his city.He was a valiant and liberal gentleman, and of a great heart.I mind how I combated his melancholy, for he was most melancholic.But now I have grown like him.
Perhaps Sir Edward Coke was right and I have a Spanish heat.I think a man cannot strive whole-heartedly with an enemy unless he have much in common with him, and as the strife goes on he gets liker....Ah, Jasper, once I had such ambitions that they made a fire all around me.Once I was like Kit Marlowe's Tamburlaine:
"'Threatening the world with high astounding terms, And scourging kingdoms with his conquering sword.'